Couple quick hits:
- I didn't really get to scout the game as "hard" as I had intended. It turns out that when you go to a game in person, you just want to watch it and enjoy the experience without taking notes on it. That said, I managed to glean a few things from the evening.
- I was in the tenth row of the upper deck, such as it is at the MetroCentre, right on the defend-twice blue line -- bench side, which is on the "wrong" side in Rockford like it is in Edmonton. Great view of the ice. I would encourage anyone within spitting distance of the Northwest Tollway to jump on and get out to a game. It was hard to see line changes, but other than that, there can't be a single
bad seat in the house. Parking is reasonable (though it's a bitch and a half to get out), and State Street is a veritable cultural mecca of chain dining. Seriously, do people in Rockford ever buy groceries and prepare their own food, or do they just subsist entirely on Taco Bell (
Rockford's #1 Mexican Restaurant) and Happy Wok? I went to Beef-a-Roo, of course, and more on that later.
- It was Pink In The Rink night, which meant that they dyed the ice pink for breast cancer awareness. But they didn't put down a whole sheet of pink ice like some teams do. It looks like they just poured some food coloring in the Zamboni (well, the
Hamboni, because they're the IceHogs, you see) and sprayed some pink ice over the regular ice. The team also wore special pink sweaters, which followed the template of, of all sweaters, the Atlanta Thrashers' maroon alternates that lasted like a year before the team moved. That the player names were single-layer white on pink didn't help my note-taking, either. The team honored the respective moms of Scott Darling and Ryan Hartman for being breast cancer survivors.
- Adam Clendening had a good night. Two assists and an overall good handle on things. He had one big brainfart on a third-period power play where he came racing in over the blue line, slammed on the brakes, tried to drop back to a late man, had no late man, and just kinda sat there with his thumb up his ass for what felt like forever. Still, can't knock two assists.
- The whole defense, as a matter of fact, really dictated the terms of the game. Having career tweeners in Brennan and Cumiskey plus rising players in Clendening, Pokka, and maybe Dahlbeck really makes a difference. Lots of takeaways, not just getting guys off the puck but sending play in the other direction.
- Scott Darling looked like he was watching the game unfold before him in slow motion. We praise him for looking collected in his NHL callups, but against a mediocre AHL team, this guy was practically Luded out. He was making glove saves like he was reaching for a beer. He saw 30 and stopped 30. Did it for Mom. Meanwhile, on the other end, Jacob Markstrom looked lanky, awkward, and pressured, though he was cool as a cucumber while that Pierre-Cedric Labrie guy shot one in from the circle. I do not get the impression that Markstrom's arrow is pointing up.
- Hartman and Ross were gritty and grindy and also scored! They seem to be very popular. Second to Darling, the biggest reaction during the starting lineup was for Brandon Mashinter, of all people. There will always be a Rockford, I guess. Waive Carcillo and send him down here. They'll throw a fucking parade.
- Danault had an assist. McNeill was pretty well invisible to me. T.J. Brennan took a penalty for a retaliatory cross-check after one of Utica's idiots ran Darling. Didn't recognize too many guys for their side except Markstrom, Cal O'Reilly (Ryan's older, less accomplished brother), and noted PIM glutton Tom Sestito, who, true to form, took a ten-minute misconduct late in the third.
- I struggle with some aspects of the Rockford fandom. I was surrounded by landwhales, which was to be expected, but they really seem to like banging cowbells. I don't get this. The team is named after pigs. Pigs don't wear cowbells. Cows wear cowbells! Am I to believe that these people don't know their livestock? It's not exactly as if Rockford is cut off from farmland. There was a great big fat person behind me who kept shouting encouragement while she had food in her mouth because of course. She was probably the worst cowbell offender around.
- One of the things that reminded me that it was AHL hockey was a lack of crisp passing, particularly from Utica. During their second-period power play, Utica gave up both a three-on-one rush and a breakaway. Markstrom stopped both, of course, but even having watched some derpy power play stuff from the Blackhawks, this looked particularly bad.
- The only minus on the night comes from Beef-a-Roo. This one's mostly on me. The food was fine, but I saw that they were selling t-shirts with the classic Beef-a-Roo logo for $12, and I got really excited, thinking that I could bolster my Rockford pride with one of these bad boys. So I asked the girl at the counter, somewhat bashfully, for one of the shirts. She said she'd see what they had. She came back with a pale blue shirt in a bag. First bad sign: the shirt up on the wall was a charcoal grey. I found out after concluding the transaction that the shirt does not have any explicit connection to Beef-a-Roo! It simply reads
I ❤
CHEESE FRIES
No! I don't! I don't heart them at all! I think they're gross! I don't care for fries, and I particularly don't want them sodden in melted cheese! How can I wear a shirt that professes this? It's not ironic, it's not Rockford pride! It won't even fit me! It's size XXL! I wear L! I should have complained, but alas, I didn't want to be difficult about it. I already felt like a goober trying to buy an ironic t-shirt for a fast food chain that only exists in a dying rust belt city. They just got $12 from unloading some shit no one cares about out of the back room. The only way I could show my Rockford pride at this point was not to demand that money back.
I'm working on a divestiture of the giant blue "I ❤ CHEESE FRIES" shirt, but if something falls through, this is a shirt could be in your future. Stay tuned.
So yeah, to summarize, IceHogs are good! Rockford is weird. I bought a stupid shirt. Go to a game!
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